Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt
Progressive Roots
 Roots in the Greenback Labor
Party of the 1870s and 1880s
and the Populist Party of the
1890s.
 Goal: use the government as an
agency of human welfare.
 Fought against monopolies,
corruption, inefficiency, and
social injustice.
Progressive Roots
 Against laissez-faire
economics
The pen is sometimes mightier than the sword.
 Muckrakers reporters exposed
injustices
The muckrakers
 Henry Demarest Lloyd
 corruption of the
Standard Oil Company
 Wealth Against
Commonwealth
 Thorstein Veblen
 criticized the new rich
 The Theory of the
Leisure Class (1899).
The muckrakers
 Jacob A. Riis
 How the Other Half
Lives
 New York slums
 Theodore Dreiser
 The Financier
 The Titan
 attack profiteers
The muckrakers
 1902 - aggressive ten and
fifteen-cent popular
magazines, such as
Cosmopolitan, Collier’s,
and Everybody’s, began
flinging the dirt about
the trusts.
Raking Muck with the Muckrakers
 Lincoln Steffens
 articles in McClure’s- “The
Shame of the Cities”
 Unmasked the corrupt alliance
between big business and the
government.
 Ida M. Tarbell
 exposé against Standard Oil and
its ruthlessness.
 Exposed the “money trusts,” the
railroad barons, and the corrupt
amassing of American fortunes,
Raking Muck with the Muckrakers
 David G. Phillips charged
that 75 of the 90 U.S. Senators
did not represent the people,
but actually the railroads and
trusts.
 Ray Stannard Baker’s
Following the Color Line was
about the illiteracy of Blacks.
 John Spargo’s The Bitter Cry
of the Children exposed child
labor.
Raking Muck with the Muckrakers
 The muckrakers
sincerely believed that
cures for the ills of
American democracy,
was more democracy.
 Progressives were
mostly middle-class
citizens who felt
squeezed by both the
big trusts above and the
restless immigrant
hordes working for
cheap labor that came
from below.
Jane Adams
Political reforms of Progressives
 Initiative - voters could
directly propose
legislation
 Referendum - people
could vote on laws that
affected them
 Recall - to remove bad
officials from office.
Political reforms of Progressives
 Secret ballot(Australian
ballot) to counteract the
effects of party bosses
 Direct election of U.S.
senators
 17th Amendment
 Females also campaigned
for woman’s suffrage, but
that did not come…yet.
Progressivism in the Cities and States
 In Wisconsin, Governor
Robert M. La Follette
wrestled control from
the trusts and returned
power to the people
 Charles Evans Hughes,
governor of New York,
gained fame by
investigating the
malpractices of gas and
insurance companies.
City managers
 Progressive cities like
Galveston, TX either
used, for the first
time, expert-staffed
commissions to manage
urban affairs or the
city-manager system,
which was designed to
take politics out of
municipal
administration.
Progressive Women
 They couldn’t vote or
hold political office, but
were active none-theless.
 Women focused their
changes on familyoriented ills such
as child labor.
Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire
 Major improvements in
the fight against
child labor
 1911 fire at the Triangle
Shirtwaist Company in
NYC which killed 146
workers, mostly young
women.
Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire
At the morgue
Relatives identifying
victims
List of names

List of Victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire NAME OF FIRE VICTIM AGE
COMMENTS Aberstein, Julia 30 Adler, Lizzie 24 Altman, Anna 16 Ardito, Anna 25 Astrowsky,
Becky 20 Bassino, Rosie 31 Belatta, Vincenza 16 Bellotta, Ignazia Father identified by heel of shoe.
Benanti, Vincenza 22 Bernstein, Essie 19 Bernstein, Jacob 28 Bernstein, Morris 19 Bernstein,
Moses Bierman, Gussie 22 Parents complained body stripped of rings. Binevitz, Abraham
20 Brenman, Rosie Brenman, Surka (Sarah) Brodsky, Ida 16 Brodsky, Sarah 21 Brooks, Ida
18 Brunette, Laura 17 Caputta 17 Carlisi, Josep 31 Caruso, Albina 20 Carutto, Frances 17 Castello,
Josie 21 Cirrito, Rosie Cohen, Anna 25 Colletti, Antonia (Annie) 30 Costello, Della Crepo, Rose
19 Denent, Grances 20 Dichtenhultz (Fichtenhultz), Yetta 18 Dockman (Dochman), Dora (Clara)
19 Dorman, K Identified by registered letter. Downic, Kalman 24 Eisenberg, Celia 17 Feibush, Rose
Feicisch(Feibish), Rebecca 17 Died at hospital after jumping. Feltzer 40 Fitze, Mrs. Dosie Lopez 24
Survived jump for day, then died. Forrester, May 25 Franco, Jennie 16 Frank, Tina 17 Gallo, Mrs.
Mary 23 Geib, Bertha 25 Gernstein, Molly 17 Gittlin, Celina 17 Goldfield, Esther Goldstein,
Esther Goldstein, Lena 22 Goldstein, Mary 11 Goldstein, Yetta 20 Gorfield, Esther
22 Grameattassio, Mrs. Irene 24 Harris, Esther 21 Broke back coming down elevator chute.
Herman, Mary 40 Jakobowski, Ida Kaplan (woman) 20 Kenowitch, Ida 18 Keober 30 Kessler,
Becky Tag read, "B Kessler, call for her tomorrow." Klein, Jacob 23 Kupla, Sara Jumped. Survived five
days after fire. Launswold, Fannie 24 Lefkowitz, Nettie 28 Lehrer, Max 19 Lehrer, Sam Leone,
Kate 14 Lermack, Rosie D. 19 Leventhal, Mary 22 Identified by gold-capped tooth. Levin, Jennie 19
Attractive woman who died with folded arms Levine, Abe Levine, Max Levine, Pauline 19 Maltese,
Catherine Mother of two victims below. Maltese, Lucia 20 One of three bodies identified by her
brother. Maltese, Rosalie(Rosari) 14 Manara, Mrs. Maria 27 Manofsky, Rose 22 Died at Bellevue
Hospital.
Just a list of names

Marciano, Mrs. Michela 25 Mayer, Minnie Meyers, Yetta 19 Miale, Bettina 18 Identified by ring on
her finger. Miale, Frances 21 Midolo, Gaetana 16 Nebrerer, Becky 19 Nicholas, Annie 18 Nicolose,
Nicolina (Michelina) Novobritsky, Annie 20 Nussbaum (Nausbaum), Sadie 18 Lower half of body
consumed by flame. Oberstein, Julia 19 Oringer, Rose Died at St. Vincent's Hospital. Ozzo, Carrie
22 Pack, Annie 18 Panno, Mrs. Providenza 48 Pasqualicca, Antonietta 16 Pearl, Ida 20 Pildescu,
Jennie 18 Pinello, Vincenza 30 Poliny, Jennie 20 Prato, Millie 21 Reivers, Becky 19 Rootstein,
Emma Robinowitz, Abraham Rosen, Israel 17 Sister identified body by ring. Rosen, Julia(widow) 35
$842 found in her stocking. Rosen, Mrs. Leob 38 Rosenbaum, Yetta 22 Rosenberg, Jennie
21 Rosenfeld, Gussie 22 Last body to be identified. Rosenthal, Nettie 21 Rother, R 25 Rother,
Theodore 22 Sabasowitz, Sarah 17 Salemi, Sophie 24 Identified by a darn in her stocking. Saracino,
Sara Saracino, Serafina 25 Saracino, Tessie 20 Schiffman, Gussie 18 Schmidt, Mrs. Theresa
32 Schneider, Mrs. Ethel Schochep, Violet 21 Schwartz, Margaret Named victim in criminal case.
Selzer, Jacob 33 Semmilio, Mrs. Annie 30 Shapiro, Rosie 17 Shena, Catherine 30 Sklaver, Berel
(Sklawer, Bennie) 25 Sorkin, Rosie 18 Spear Sprunt Spunt, Gussie 19 Starr, Mrs. Annie 30 Stein,
Jennie 18 Stellino, Jennie 16 Stiglitz, Jennie 22 Tabick, Samuel 18 Terdanova (Terranova), Clotilde
22 Only victim to die on tenth floor; jumped. Tortorella, Isabella 17 Ullo, Mary 20 Utal, Meyer
23 Velakowsky, Freda(Freida) 20 Survived jump for 3 days, then died. Vivlania, Bessie
15 Vovobritsky, Annie 20 Weinduff, Sally 17 Weiner, Rose 23 Weintraub, Sally (Sarah?)
17 Weintraub, Celia Welfowitz, Dora 21 Wilson, Joseph 21 Found by fiance; to have been wed in
June. Wisner, Tessie 27 Wisotsky, Sonia 17 Wondross, Bertha Zeltner > 30 Died of internal injuries
at St. Vincent's.
Making Judicial Progress
 Muller vs. Oregon (1908)
found attorney Louis D.
Brandeis persuading the
Supreme Court to accept the
constitutionality of laws that
protected women workers.
 Lochner v. New York
invalidated a New York law
establishing a ten-hour day
for bakers.
 Court upheld a similar law for
factory workers.
Progressives challenge the Demon Rum
 Prohibitionist
organizations - Woman’s
Christian Temperance
Union (WCTU), founded
by Frances E. Willard,
and the Anti-Saloon
League were formed.
 18th Amendment
prohibited the sale and
drinking of alcohol.
TR’s Three Cs
 President Roosevelt
 “Square Deal”
 Three Cs:
 control of the
corporations
 consumer protection
 conservation of the
United States’ natural
resources.
Square Deal Dance
1902 Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Mine Strike
 140,000 workers demanded a
20% pay increase and the
reduction of the workday to nine
hours.
 Owners refused to negotiate lack of coal (freezing schools,
hospitals, and factories)
 TR threatened to seize the mines
and operate them with federal
troops
 Workers got a 10% pay increase
and a 9-hour workday, but their
union was not officially
recognized as a bargaining
agent.
Cabinet Department of Commerce
and Labor
 In 1903- Department of
Commerce and Labor
allowed to probe
businesses engaged in
interstate commerce; it
was highly useful in
“trust-busting.”
1904 Presidential election
 TR easily beat Democrat
Alton B. Parker
 However, in 1904, TR
announced that he would
not seek the presidency in
1908, since he would have,
in effect, served two terms
by then. Thus he
“defanged” his power.
 Notice the “Solid South”
for Democrats
TR Corrals the Railroads
 1887 - Interstate Commerce
Commission – inadequate
 1903 - Elkins Act - fined
railroads that gave rebates and
the shippers that accepted them.
 1906- Hepburn Act - stated the
government's regulatory power
more definitively
 empowered the ICC to
change a railroad rate to one
it considered "just and
reasonable,“
 Mann-Elkins Act - placed the
burden of proof on the railroads;
for the first time, they would
have to actively demonstrate
that a rate was reasonable.
TR as “trustbuster”
 TR decided that there were
“good trusts” and “bad
trusts,” and set out to
control the “bad trusts,”
such as the Northern
Securities Company,
which was organized by J.P.
Morgan and James J. Hill.
 1904, Supreme Court
ordered Northern
Securities to dissolve
 Angered Wall Street but
helped TR’s image.
TR as “trustbuster”
 Crack down on over 40
trusts
 helped dissolve the
beef, sugar, fertilizer, and
harvester trusts
 He wasn’t as large of a
trustbuster as he has been
portrayed.
 He had no wish to take down
the “good trusts,” but the
trusts that did fall under TR’s
big stick fell symbolically, so
that other trusts would
reform themselves.
Consumer protection
 Upton Sinclair’s
The Jungle horrors of the
meatpacking
industry
 Meat Inspection
Act, preparation
of meat shipped
over state lines
would be subject
to federal
inspection
 The Pure Food
and Drug Act
tried to prevent
the adulteration
and mislabeling
of foods and
pharmaceuticals
Starting to protect the
Environment
 Wasting natural
resources
 Forest Reserve Act of
1891 - authorized the
president to set aside
land to be protected as
national parks.
 Under this statute,
some 46 million
acres of forest were
set aside as
preserves.
Starting to protect the
Environment
 Gifford Pinchot head of the federal
Division of Forestry –
Conservationist
 The Newlands Act of
1902 - initiated
irrigation projects for
the western states
Starting to protect the
Environment
 By 1900, only a quarter of the nation’s
natural timberlands
remained, so he set aside 125 million
acres, establishing perhaps his
most enduring achievement as
president.
 In 1913, San Francisco received
permission to build a dam in Hetchy
Hetch Valley, a part of Yosemite
National Park, causing much
controversy.
 Roosevelt’s conservation deal
meant working with the big
logging companies, not the small,
independent ones.
The “Roosevelt Panic” of 1907
 Widespread popularity
 Conservatives branded him as a
dangerous rattlesnake, unpredictable in
his Progressive moves.
 In 1907, a short but sharp panic on Wall
Street placed TR at the center of its
blame
 He lashed back
 Panic died down.
 1908 - Aldrich-Vreeland Act –
authorized national banks to issue
emergency currency backed by various
kinds of collateral.
 This would lead to the momentous
Federal Reserve Act of 1913
Need for an elastic currency
The Rough Rider Thunders Out
 In the 1908 campaign, TR
chose William Howard
Taft as his “successor,”
hoping that the corpulent
man would continue his
policies
 Taft easily defeated
William Jennings Bryan
 surprise came from
Socialist Eugene V. Debs,
who garnered 420,793
votes.
TR’s Legacy
 Protected against socialism
 Conservationist
 Expanded the powers of
the presidency
 Shaped the progressive
movement
 Launched the Square
Deal—a precursor to the
New Deal
 Opened American eyes to
the fact that America
shared the world with
other nations so that it
couldn’t be isolationist.
Meet President Taft
 William Taft was a
mild progressive, quite
jovial, quite fat, and
passive.
 He was also sensitive to
criticism and not as
liberal as Roosevelt.
The Dollar Goes Abroad as Diplomat
 Taft - “Dollar Diplomacy” -
called for Wall Street bankers
to invest their surplus dollars
into foreign areas of strategic
concern to the U.S.
 (Far East and in the regions
critical to the security of the
Panama Canal)
 This investment, in effect,
gave the U.S. economic
control over these areas.
Bad Neighbor Policy
 Roosevelt carried the big stick in
the America’s while Taft promoted
“Dollar Diplomacy”
 In 1909, perceiving a threat to
the monopolistic Russian and
Japanese control of the
Manchurian Railway, Taft had
Secretary of State Philander C.
Knox propose that a group of
American and foreign bankers
buy the railroads and turn them
over to China.
 Taft also pumped U.S. dollars
into Honduras and Haiti, whose
economies were stagnant, while
in Cuba, the same Honduras, the
Dominican Republic, and
Nicaragua, American forces were
brought in to restore order after
unrest.
The real “trustbuster” President
Taft
 In his four years of office,
Taft brought 90 suits
against trusts.
 In 1911, the Supreme Court
ordered the dissolution of
the Standard Oil Company.
 After Taft tried to break
apart U.S. Steel despite
TR’s prior approval of the
trust, Taft increasingly
became TR’s antagonist.
Taft Splits the Republican Party
 Two main issues split the
Republican party: (1) the tariff
and (2) conservation of lands.
 To lower the tariff and fulfill
a campaign promise, Taft and
the
House passed a moderately
reductive bill, but the Senate,
led by Senator Nelson W.
Aldrich, tacked on lots of
upward revisions, and thus,
when the Payne-Aldrich
Bill passed, it betrayed Taft’s
promise, incurred the wrath
of his party (drawn mostly
from the Midwest), and
outraged many people.


Old Republicans were
high-tariff;
new/Progressive
Republicans were low
tariff.
Taft even foolishly
called it “the best bill
that the Republican
party ever passed.”
Rhode
Island
Senator
Nelson
Aldrich
Ballinger Pinchot Affair
 Ballinger-Pinchot Quarrel
 Secretary of the Interior
Richard Ballinger opened
public lands in Wyoming,
Montana, and Alaska to
corporate development and
was criticized by Forestry
chief Gifford Pinchot, who
was then fired by Taft.
 Old Republicans favored
using the lands for business;
new/Progressive Republicans
favored conservation of
lands.
1910 “off year” elections
 In the spring of 1910, the
Republican party was
split between the
Progressives and the Old
Guard that Taft
supported, so that the
Democrats emerged
with a landslide in the
House.
 Socialist Victor L. Berger
was elected from
Milwaukee to Congress.
The Socialist
Victor L. Berger
The Republican Party Splits
 In 1911, the National
Progressive Republican
League was formed,
with Robert M. La Follette
as its leader
 February 1912, TR began
dropping hints that he
wouldn’t mind being
nominated by the
Republicans (he had
meant no third consecutive
term, not a third term
overall)
1912 Presidential Election
 Rejected by the Taft
supporters of the
Republicans, TR became a
candidate on the Progressive
party ticket, shoving
LaFollette aside.
 In the Election of 1912, it
would be Theodore Roosevelt
(Progressive Republican or
Bull Moose Party) versus
William H. Taft (Old Guard
Republican)versus the
Democratic candidate,
Woodrow Wilson.
Welcome President Wilson